What Men Want. Deborah Blumenthal

even a Clio.”

      “So what the hell is it?” he asked, losing patience.

      The pregnant pause. “Model Thin,” I said softly with a self-satisfied expression on my face. And again for more emphasis. “Model Thin.”

      “Hmm,” Chris said in a positive voice, nodding his head slightly. I had struck a nerve. “Hmm,” he said again, biting the corner of his thumbnail. “That’s not bad. That is definitely not bad at all.”

      “Think of all the models that you could hire for the shoot,” I said, regretting the words the instant they rolled off my tongue. He sat there, mulling it over.

      “I could work with that,” Chris said. “Model Thin.”

      “Can we go out and take a walk now?” I said. “I’m getting tired of vegging out in front of the TV.” He clicked it off decisively and we headed out, walking downtown, toward the Village, always a good destination because it was about three miles there and back. We stopped at a coffee bar for espresso and pastries that would never allow me to become model thin, scanned magazines and out-of-town newspapers hanging along a wooden rack on the wall, and then got up to leave. As we got outside, fate reared its head, and a six-foot-tall blonde strutted by. Perfect skin, hair piled sloppily on top of her head, arresting blue eyes and, of course, she was totally without makeup, which I can’t stand because it tells me that that’s how she looks in the morning or the middle of the night if, say, she runs out to the street because her house is on fire.

      I looked her up and down. Never mind the ragged jeans that are made to look grungy, so unappealing to me, and the tired-looking down jacket, she was ready for the cover of Vogue. If she wasn’t a model yet, she’d be discovered in a heartbeat. She just had that camera-ready look—you can always tell.

      “Model Thin,” Chris said, looking right into her eyes. “I like that.” She looked at him curiously and then just smiled. I took his hand and pulled him away, in the direction of uptown, trying to ignore the knot eating into the base of my stomach.